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The embarrassing cock-up forced the Z key, which should sit beneath the A and S keys, along the row in Vostro laptops affected by the problem. Subsequent keys in the same row were also bumped along because the shift key was too big.

Dell's Bill Bivin admitted yesterday on a blog post on the firm's Direct2Dell website: "There is no way to say it... we made a mistake and want to apologise to affected customers."

The presumably expensive blunder has also forced the computer giant to offer customers who received the wrong keyboard layout a replacement.

"They [customers] will have two options," said Bivin. "We can send the keyboard and required BIOS update directly to them, or they can choose to have a field technician replace the keyboard onsite."

Dell is also planning to post a video for any customers brave enough to replace the keyboard themselves. No word on whether such hardware fiddling will void the machine's warranty, however, or whether it will charge for a visit from a field technician. ®